Best snake dispatching knife

Raised in very snake handly church southern mo in the 70s. Swam with moccs all the time no big. Still, if im on trail with my tiny kids wife and pets i want to have a beheadin instrument handy...today i think i perfected my olympia 18" curvedmachete by dremeling a pinky finger cutout near the handle end. Now she dont feel like its gonna fling outta my hand if i go book of eli with it.
 
DMG said:
I do kill rattlesnakes to protect my kids and dogs but I generally love animals including snakes. Good to hear the OP is not indiscriminately killing snakes.
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Had about 10 Diamondbacks last year in the yard. I put a stick behind the head and pick it up, put it in a bucket and relocate them. Had the yard snake proofed last year for around $300.
 
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AdamFuzzyballs said:
Interesting theory involving snakes, at least in this part of the country (mid south)- they’re saying that copperheads and water moccasins are getting more aggressive because of the fact that the ones that “run” when they sense a human walking upon them are usually the ones that get noticed and therefore killed. Copperheads in particular have apparently been evolving towards staying still when something approaches them- which ironically leads to more bites because they stay almost invisible til you step on them. We had firsthand experience last year when we were all talking in a big circle one morning at work, only to notice as we went our separate ways that there was a juvenile copperhead hanging out in the middle the entire time.

Water moccasins do the same, accept they are more aggressive by nature so more likely to step up close to the nest and have one chase out towards you.

I.E. killing every snake you see is probably gonna backfire at some point.

PSA there’s a really well run group on Facebook that explains the emergency protocol for snake bites- I would definitely look up the best emergency plans for snake bites if you’re gonna be around then at all- apparently antivenin is not as commonly available as you’d presume and there’s some things that experts agree on that even some hospitals tend to not do.
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“What did the doc say?”
“He says you’re gonna die.”
 
VorpelSword said:
Me too. I give it marginal credence as in "well maybe, but . . ."

I will say that I have seen an alligator make weak crawling movements with its hind legs (tail moved too) when stepped on . . .four hours after I had shot it in the head.
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Was you ever bit by a dead bee? You know, a dead bee can bite you just as bad as a live one, ‘specially if he was mad when he got kilt.
 
The handle should be longer than the snake you're trying to dispatch. I prefer a "jigger" and a calico bag though, all your 'murican snakes like to "ride" the hook anyway.
 
There is a company in Arizona that trains dogs, picks up snakes, and fences yards to keep snakes out. The screen metal fencing with fine mesh screen and cement gaps in walls. I've handled snakes for 60 years and know how agile and strong they are. It cost me about $300 but it was worth the piece of mind
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I only kill the poisonous snakes that are some place that makes them a danger to people, if I'm off-trail I just move around them while keeping a keen eye out for any buddies they might have.
 
Sidehill Gouger said:
I never kill them. I'm just happy to get a chance to see them in the wild. That includes rattlers on the east side of the hill.
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My oldest went to college on the east side of the hill. He hiked about a fair bit with the hopes of seeing or hearing a rattler or two in the wild. Never did spy one.

This side of the hill next to the water has garter snakes that are welcome in my garden any time.

I believe that if there were venomous snakes that threatened the neighborhood kids and animals here, I would be of a mind to dispatch them...

And were I of a mind to do so, I think I'd do the ol' revolver with shotshell routine.

But I've never been in that position, so put me down as "I dunno".
 
My uncle was showing me his bass boat years ago when I noticed a chunk missing from the starboard gunwale. I asked him what happened and he told me he was fishing with his young daughter when a cottonmouth tried to climb over the size. He dead-centered the head with a load of snake shot from his .44 magnum Ruger Redhawk. He didn't seem to think too much of it. A few years later his wife, my mother's younger sister, dispatched a rattlesnake she found under the kitchen sink. I am SO glad we only have garter and grass snakes here in SE Wisconsin.
 
I would not use a knife against a snake. You'd be way too close. Their reflexes are lightning quick, and while you may slice him, you probably will already have been bitten.

A long stick is a better option, if you aren't carrying a firearm with shot loads. Or a sword.
 
MessieurRick said:
My uncle was showing me his bass boat years ago when I noticed a chunk missing from the starboard gunwale. I asked him what happened and he told me he was fishing with his young daughter when a cottonmouth tried to climb over the size. He dead-centered the head with a load of snake shot from his .44 magnum Ruger Redhawk. He didn't seem to think too much of it. A few years later his wife, my mother's younger sister, dispatched a rattlesnake she found under the kitchen sink. I am SO glad we only have garter and grass snakes here in SE Wisconsin.
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A .44 Magnum should do it.
 
Best snake gun I ever had was a 3" barrel (IIRC) Charter Pathfinder that I bored the cylinder out to .22 magnum (they didn't make a .22 mag at the time), and loaded it with those blue-tipped CCI snake shot. That thing weighed nothing (as a surveyor I already had a belt full of shit, and it sidpatched snakes regularly. When we were laying out a new structure or mine there were always snake of all varieties around the bunch of sheet metal coal cars used in the mind. We'd hook a chain to the Jeep and give them a good jerk, and it was game on. We would be doing a lot of fiddling with the instrument and rod and didn't have time to watch other places as we worked, so we "snaked it out" before we started work, especially if we were reopening a mine that had a lot of industrial junk laying around. Fun fact - copperheads,rattlers, black snakes and a variety of non-poisonous snakes would be laying on top of each other when we jerked an old mine car, which is a cool environment because of the2-4 inches of water in it. Never saw one snake attack another, except for king snakes which we didn't have in abundance. Puts an end to the idea that snakes crave sunlight - that's not to say they won't "sun themselves" to warm up after a cool night, but like us (and Goldilocks) they seek a temperature that's "just right".

When I wasn't working and just rambling the woods I never killed a snake unless it was near a footpath that people often used. If I were still able to ramble again, I'd invest in snake-catching equipment and just relocate them. Their role in controlling small rodents populations is much overstated - a rattler can eat one rat and it may be a month or so before he needs more food. The rodents multiply so fast that we'd have to be up to our ears in snakes for them to control them. That's why it's important to have a certain amount of other predators like hawks and foxes. Foxes have to be controlled, though, as they multiply so fast that if not controlled the native ground-nesting birds will be wiped out. That's what happened when I lived in the coal country of southwest Virginia. Not only were the native grey foxes in overabundance, but some guys who liked fox hunting with dogs imported some red foxes from Michigan; they are quite a bit bigger than our native red foxes and they could out-compete them. It got so bad that a lot of men (me included) started trapping them and selling fur. After about 3-4 years of that, we started seeing rabbits and ruffed grouse again.
 
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